Bourne, Code to Zero, and Identity
Pastors’ Blog
August 25, 2009

Dear [FIRSTNAME],

My son is 4 and 1/4 years old today. Twenty years from now he likely won’t remember much of anything that happened to him in these first few years.

A few months ago, I listened to Code to Zero by Ken Follett. I enjoyed it, mostly I think, because of the premise. There’s something about a person losing his memory and trying to figure out who he is. It reminded me of one of my favorite all time books, The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum.

What really strikes me is the moral dilemma they face as they ask the question, “What kind of person am I?” It horrifies them to think they might be bad people who have done bad things.

But if I don’t remember doing evil, does that evil define who I am? Can I not somehow re-make my identity? That’s not easy to do, is it? Our memories define who we are, what’s important to us...in short, our identity. And my identity is pretty important to me, and I do not let go of it easily.

Even if I don’t like my identity.

What if I wake up one day and find that I remember everything I’ve ever done? And what if I don’t like that person too much?

Paul tells us that in Christ we are a new creation (1 Corinthians 5:17). He tells us to clothe ourselves with a new self (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). As C. S. Lewis puts it, we are to play dress up, to pretend to be Jesus. And in pretending, we find ourselves to be new people, to be like the person we’re pretending to be.

But there’s also a very real sense that when we clothe ourselves with Christ that we become more fully who we are. That is, when I am in Christ, I don’t lose my identity (what I like to call my “Steve-ness”). Instead, I become more fully Steve.

In putting on Christ, I become like Jesus but also more fully human and more fully Steve--kind, loving, good, gentle, compassionate, generous. So, in a way, Christianity is nothing more than a big game of “let’s pretend.” But “pretend” rooted in the historical death and resurrection of Jesus, and in the very real actions of reading and speaking God’s Word, getting wet in baptism, and eating and drinking Jesus’ body and blood.

Just kidding about the steve-ness. I’ve never used that term before, but it cracked me up, so I left it. This encourages me, it makes me think that in heaven, I may actually be funny. Then again, maybe that will be one of those things that gets left out of my true Steve. Or maybe people in  heaven will just kindly laugh at my jokes.

In Christ,
Pastor Steve

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